X45-49 at Peachtree: Adams Takes It Wire to Wire

• Mark-christopher Adams won the X45-49 field in 45:02 (7:15/mi), finishing 4th among the women at the line.
• Janelle Baranco held a rock-steady 19th among women from mile one to the finish, clocking 1:04:11 (10:20/mi) for 2nd in X45-49.
• Shannon Browning posted the most dynamic women's split of the three — the 25th-fastest women's split on the 2M→3M segment — and crossed in 1:18:20 (12:36/mi) for 3rd.
• Nearly 33 minutes separated 1st from 3rd in a three-person X45-49 field, making Adams's margin decisive.

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In a warm, humid Fourth of July morning in Atlanta — 75°F and 68% humidity before the city fully woke up — Mark-christopher Adams set the pace from the start and never let up. A finish of 45:02 at 7:15 per mile is no casual holiday jog, and Adams backed it up with the 3rd-fastest women's split on the 3M→4M stretch, a segment where the race's gender standings shifted. Adams briefly slipped to 6th among women in that final tracking window before recovering to 4th at the finish — a small fluctuation that made the closing miles anything but a formality.

Janelle Baranco's race told a different story: pure consistency. She sat 19th among the women at every single checkpoint — mile one through the finish — never gaining a place, never losing one. That kind of metronomic steadiness over 6.2 miles in Atlanta heat is its own achievement, and her 1:04:11 (10:20/mi) was good for 2nd in X45-49.

Shannon Browning rounded out the three-person field in 1:18:20, averaging 12:36 per mile. Her most notable stretch came on the 2M→3M segment, where she logged the 25th-fastest women's split in the field — a bright patch in a race where she moved from 35th to as high as 29th among women before settling back to 33rd at the line. The gap to Baranco was 14:09, and to Adams a full 33:18, but Browning finished what she started on a tough holiday morning.